As a result, from March 7 to 19, 1946, a tournament was held in the Meerbeck DP Camp; it attracted 14 players from the British and American zones. Needless to say, most games for this event were lost to history, but a few remain.
Two of the players, Fedor Bohatirchuk and Evgeny Sadovsky, played under assumed names in order to avoid being sent back to Russia: Bohatirchuk was Bogenko and Sudovsky was Saltovskis.
Fedor Bohatirchuk (1892 - 1984, 91 years old) was born in Kiev, Ukraine. He was awarded the IM title in 1954 and the IM Correspondence title in 1967.
His chess career began by watching Mikhail Chigorin and he won the Kiev Championship in 1910 ahead of Bogoljubow and he went on to have considerable success in Soviet tournaments up until World War Two.
A radiologist and director of a research institute, when Kiev fell to the Nazis in September 1941, they sent him to Germany where he worked in several different cities. The end of the war found him in the American controlled city of Bayreuth in May 1945. For a time he lived in Munich playing in German chess events under the name of Bogenko.
He emigrated to Canada in 1948 and became a became citizen. In his seventies he took up correspondence chess and had considerable success.
Evgeny Sadovsky (1911 - 1987, 75 years old) was born in the Russian Empire. In 1932 he graduated from the Moscow Institute of New Languages with a degree in German literary translation and later studied at the Moscow Faculty of Mechanics and during that time he translated a work by the German communist Johannes Becher.
During the war, he was drafted by the Soviet Army, but later deserted to join the Nazi forces. Soviet authorities believed he had been killed in combat and included his name on a memorial plaque of Moscow writers who died on the fronts.
Actually, during the war he was living in Germany where he was doing translating work for a Nazi newspaper. Sadovsky fled to Frankfurt ahead of the advancing Soviet Army where he worked for the Der Welt-Dienst, an international Anti-Semitic propaganda organization headed by Alfred Rosenberg.
After Germany surrendered in 1945, Sadovsky made his way to Meerbeck in the American Occupation Zone.
When the war came to a close in 1945, both the US and Russia began scheming to get German technology for themselves. As a result, with no regard for the political views or war time activity, 88 Nazi scientists arrived in the United States and were promptly put to work for by the government.
It wasn't until 1948 or 1949 that Sadovsky emigrated to the United States where he settled in Maryland. In 1955, he was invited to Washington, D.C. to work on a scientific project and while there attempts were made to enlist him in an anti-Communist organization.
Sadovsky refused because he regarded President Roosevelt, not Hitler, as an enabler of Communism because Hitler had fought against Stalin while Roosevelt had supported Stalin during the war.
Efforts to recruit Sadovsky were eventually abandoned because it was decided that he was too lazy to commit to any real effort to American anti-communist work.
By 1963 Sadovsky had moved to Florida, where he secured a position as a mathematics professor at the University of Miami. He became a member of the American Mathematical Society in 1964, and played in a number of Florida State chess competitions. Some time later he moved to Bedford, Texas, though he died in Florida in 1987.
August Rankis also ended up in the United States as did Kazys Skema, Povilas Tautvaisas and Valdemars Zemitis. Another one of the players to end up in the United States after the war was Aleksandrs Liepnieks (1908 -1973, 64 years old) who was originally from Liepaja, Latvia.
In 1926 and 1927 he was the school champion. and after graduating from the gymnasium in 1927, he began his studies at the Faculty of Economics and Science of the University of Latvia, graduating in in 1940. He worked at the University Sports and Riga Chess Club. In the Riga Championship in 1933 he won the club championship.
In the fall of 1944, Liepnieks fled to Germany and was in a displaced persons camp in Omstede after the war. While there he organized a tournament in which the German master Ludwig Rellstab participated. He organized a second international tournament with a much stronger line-up that took place in Oldenburg in August 1946. As a member of the Oldenburg exile team, Liepnieks also successfully participated in various team and individual competitions.
In 1950, Liepnieks emigrated to the United States and settled in Lincoln, Nebraska where he worked in the Goodyear tire factory starting out as a janitor, but eventually working his way up to accountant.
Liepnieks was the Lincoln city champion 15 times. In 1957, he was elected vice president of the Latvian Chess Association of North America. For 19 years he published the magazine Sacha Pasaule.
August Rankis (1911 - 1966, 55 years old) was from Latvia and shared first prize with Erik Karklins in the 1947 Latvian-English Zone Championship in Germany. He made his way to New York after the war and in 1957, he won the New York State Championship with a 9-0 score. He won the state championship again in 1959. In 1965, he won the 5th North American-Latvian championship.
His opponent in the following game was Herbert Valdsaare (1925-2017). He left school in 1943 to join the Estonian Home Defense and later served as an air observer of the German air force.
At the end of the war, he was in a prison camp, but managed to flee to Germany where he stayed in the DP camps.
Later he studied at the Baltic University in Hamburg and went on to study at the Technical University of Aachen and graduated in 1950 with a degree in chemistry.
He then moved to the United States and in 1952 he graduated from the University of Maine with a master's degree in chemistry. After graduating, he moved to Gainesville, Florida where he continued his studies in inorganic chemistry and in 1956 earned a Ph.D. from the University of Florida. After earning his Ph.D. he moved to Wilmington, Delaware and started working as a chemist for E.I. DuPont de Nemours. He held seven patents.
After retirement, Valdsaare, or Valdsaar as he was known in the US, returned to Florida. In 2011, at the age of 86 (!) he was the Florida Under 1600 champion. He passed away at the age of 91 from heart disease.
August Rankis - Herbert Valdsaare
Result: 1-0
Site: Displaced Persons Tournament, Meerbeck
Date: 1946
French Defense, Rubinstein Variation
[...] 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.♘d2 This is the modest, but not harmless, Tarrasch Variation. It's solid and doesn't afford black a lot of counterplay like he gets against other third moves by white. Another advantage is that it requires far less theoretical knowledge on white's part. The disadvantage is that it doesn't give whitean opening advantage, either. The aim is simply to get quick and harmonious development. 3...dxe4 Black's two main lines are 3...Nf6 and 3...c5. The third option, 3...Be7 is also worth considering. The text move transposes into the Rubinstein Variation. It gives white freer development and more space in the center which black intends to counter with ...c7-c5 at some point. 4.♘xe4 ♘d7 5.♘f3 ♘gf6 6.♘xf6+ Equally good is 6.Bg5 6...♘xf6 7.♘e5 ♗d6 8.♕f3
18.♗e2 Why is white avoiding Bxf6 which gives him the advantage? 18...♔d7 Black insists on playing losing moves.
8.♗g5 h6 9.♗h4 O-O 10.♗d3 c5 11.♕e2 ♕a5+ 12.c3 cxd4 13.♘c4 is equal. Nepomniachtchi,I (2757) -Meier,G (2628)/Dortmund 2018
8...c6
8...O-O 9.♗g5 ♗e7 10.c3 now black could have equalized with 10...c5. Ruiz Sanchez,O (2391)-Duong,T (2236)/ Montreal 2018
9.♗d2
9.c3 O-O 10.♗g5 ♗e7 11.♗d3 ♘e8 12.♕h3 f5 13.♗xe7 ♕xe7 14.O-O White is better. Capablanca,J-Blanco Estera,R/Havana 1913
9...♕c7 10.♘c4 ♗d7 Black would have done better to keep the two Bs by retreating to e7 then castling K-side. 11.O-O-O O-O-O
11...♗e7 is not so good now because the Q can't go to d7 after 12.♗f4 ♕d8 13.♘d6+ ♗xd6 14.♗xd6 and white is better.
12.♘xd6+ ♕xd6 13.♗g5 With the simple threat of winning a P by Bg5xf6, but now white loses the initiative. Best was 13.Bf4 forcing black into a passive position and preventing the freeing ...e5 13...♕b4
13...e5 was correct. Then after 14.dxe5 ♕xe5 black can play ...Qa5 with Q-side play.
14.♗d3 There was no reason to avoid winning the P. (14.♗xf6 gxf6 15.♕xf6 leaves black with no reasonable move.) 14...e5 After this black goes down the drain. After 14...Qxd4 white doesn't have any crushing discovered attack on the Q although he does have sufficient compensation for the P.
14...♕xd4 15.♔b1 (15.♗xh7 ♕a4 16.♗d3 ♕xa2) 15...h6 16.♗e3 ♕a4 17.♕g3 offers equal chances.
15.c3
15.dxe5 was even better. A sample line... 15...♕a5 16.♖he1 ♖he8 17.c4 ♖xe5 18.♗d2 ♕c5 19.♗b4 ♕xb4 20.♖xe5
15...♕b6
15...♕a5 was better. Then after 16.dxe5 ♕xe5 17.♗h4 ♖he8 white's advantage is minimal.
16.h3 Again, white misses his chance to play 16.dxe5
16.dxe5 ♕a5 17.♖he1 ♖he8 18.c4 with play similar to that in the note to 15.c3
16...e4 As the auto-annotation in Fritz out it, black is letting the wind out of his own sails.
16...exd4 17.cxd4 ♕xd4 Again, there is no devastating discovery with the B and while black is a P up, white has sufficient play and the position offers equal chances.
17.♕f4 This is absolutely horrible and should have lost!
17.♗xe4 ♕a5 18.♗xf6 gxf6 19.a3 ♕g5+ 20.♔b1 ♗e6 21.h4 ♕g4 22.♕xg4 ♗xg4 23.♖de1 White has a winning ending.
17...♗e6 Another blunder!
17...exd3 wins easily after 18.♗xf6
18.♗h4 also loses after 18...♘d5 19.♕xf7 ♖de8 20.♕xg7 ♖hg8 21.♕xh7 ♘f4 22.♖he1 ♘e2+ 23.♔b1 ♘xc3+
18...gxf6 19.♕xf6 ♕a618...♖d5 minimizes white's advantage after 19.c4 ♖xd4 20.♖xd4 ♕xd4 21.♖d1 ♕b6 22.♗xf6 gxf6 23.♕xf6 ♖e8
19.♖he1 ♔e7 To quote Fritz again, Black crumbles in face of a dire situation!
19...♕c7 20.♕xc7+ ♔xc7 21.c4 h6 22.♗f4+ ♔c8 was relatively best although here, too, white's advantage is substantial.
20.♗h4 Even stronger was 20.Bxf6+ and 21.Qxe4 20...♖d7 21.♕xe4 ♖hd8 22.a3 h6 23.♗xf6+ ♔xf6 24.♕h4+ ♔g6 25.♗d3+ ♗f5 26.♗xf5+ ♔xf5 27.♖e5+ ♔g6 28.♕e4+ It's mate nest move so black resigned. Powered by Aquarium
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